Decorating the streets of his native Montreal, artist Roadsworth’s work is inbued witn an underlying message about our dependence on cars and is fulled by his desire to create a unique language around street markings and other elements of the urban landscape using a stencil based technique.

We love free Montreal-based street magazine, SNAP!, which takes an insidery peek at the creative happenings in that lofty city. They’ve just released of Issue 9, in which contributors were invited to submit work based on one or a series of Three-Letter Words. The cover image is one of a series of photo-booth shots by Canadian photographer Robin Hart Hiltz, built around the word EAT.

Montreal-based illustrator Aimee van Drimmelen has been collecting used drumskins from local musicians and painting on them. The results are beautiful and for sale (along with her other work) through her etsy store.

Made-in-Montreal independent art magazineSNAP! brings out its eighth issue this month and gets a little bit gritty and pensive with their SURVIVAL theme. Reflections on war, prison, personal struggle and surviving life in the city are some of what you will find in the Fall issue, alongside a dark warrior aesthetic and a strong photo lineup including an on-location shoot with five of Montreal’s best graffiti artists and a series on indoor office plants. Definitely worth checking out, and featuring a sick ad for Lost At E Minor designed by Montreal mixed-media artist Jeremy Dabrowski (it’s on page 15).

While a pastrami sandwich at Katz’s in NYC is a transcendent experience, its relatively high price, its enormous proportions, and the hassle of the lines and payment system of the establishment make it a rare treat. If only we all lived in Montreal, home of Schwartz’s, where they serve some of the best smoked meat […]

I used to edit a free street mag in Australia called STU, so I was impressed when I came across a similarly sized one out of Montreal called SNAP!, which expertly covers fashion, art, music and other creative pursuits with a healthy focus on spotlighting local creatives. We checked in with Hannah Byrne, who along with Shayl Prisk is one of the two founders of the publication, and asked her about the spark behind the launch of SNAP! ‘Initially the spark came when Shayl and I sat down after a long day in our kitchen jobs and decided we wanted to do something different, more creative. Over the course of several months we brainstormed over lattes and pints and talked about exactly what kind of magazine we would want to read and what kind of stories we would want to tell. It was a really exciting time, starting this thing from scratch and deciding where it was going to go’.

I visited Toronto for the first time a couple of weekends back to check out the Luminato Festival and explore the city itself, which is being promoted as a more socially progressive and cultural alternative to other Canadian hotspots such as Montreal and Vancouver. And for good reason. Toronto is a fascinating place on many levels: from the architecture in the city center, which seamlessly combines the ornate majesty of pre-1940 buildings with the glistening facades of more contemporary designs; to the long, straight roads which defines movement though the city and contains an assortment of hidden gems; to the overall cleanliness of the streets and the overwhelming sense that a bustling creative community is doing all it can to foster the careers of others around them. It was an eye-opening experience. I left the city with a feeling that Toronto is very much on the rise, casting aside its wintry persona and thriving on the back of what is clearly a dynamic and exciting creative scene. Photos by Alison Zavos

Our friends over at SNAP!, Montreal’s only free and independent arts and lifestyle publication, have just put out their sixth issue — Vagabonds — which, fittingly, celebrates all things foreign, with tales from seasoned travelers as well as new arrivals now calling Montreal home. It also explores the international quartiers of the city and profiles […]

Red hot Montreal band Land of Talk feature Elizabeth Powell, a former punk who got her start playing her own anti-rock anthems on the local scene of Guelph, Ontario, during her mid-teens. We got the inside word from her on the tunes that inspire Land of Talk’s own high energy frock and roll. The first […]

Canada seems to be the land of amazing ambient metal duos. Montreal has Menace Ruine, and Toronto has Nadja, a formidable couple that churns out huge-sounding, bass and electronics-driven doom that draws your gaze up towards the stars just as old cathedral ceilings humble the faithful and make them think of the Almighty.

Our friends over at SNAP!, Montreal’s only free and independent arts and lifestyle magazine have just released their fourth issue in which they look back and celebrate the faded beauty of past eras, grandmas and grandpas, Polaroids, antique finds, old wisdom and vintage style. Yeeha! They also remember the best of 2008 in Montreal arts, […]

Menace Ruine is a husband-wife black metal duo from Montreal. I never thought I’d get a chance to see them live, seeing as most bands of this ilk are one-off basement projects, but when I saw them on a Halloween bill with fellow French Canadians Nadja, I couldn’t skip it. They didn’t disappoint with their […]

Montreal’s only free independent arts and lifestyle magazine — SNAP! — recently launched their third issue for September and October. Titled Bookish, the issue celebrates, among other things, the beauty of books, the charm of geeks, poetry, blogging, artists and their workspaces and a cafe guide for students trying to get their study on in […]

We love the look of new, free Montreal-based street magazine, SNAP!, an arts and lifestyle publication which focuses on all that exciting work that is conceived, created and marketed in Montreal by artists, creative minds and young entrepreneurs.